79approach refers to the development of organizational architecture including develop-
ing organizations and networks that guides regionalization initiatives, and lastly, the
political approach involves the political will and strategies that place regionalization
initiatives on the agenda of decision-making bodies which are usually embodied in
terms of declarations, conventions, agreements, treaties, and summits.
It should be noted that Asian regionalization of higher education is focused on
East Asian regionalism and its higher education initiatives. As such, and at least to
date, East Asian regionalization is representative of Asian regionalization of higher
education. Chao (2014b) mapping of key East Asian higher education regionaliza-
tion (and related) initiatives from the 1980s to the early 2010s into Knight’s func-
tional, organizational, and political approaches, as presented in Table 5.1, provides
a longitudinal overview of Asian higher education regionalization. Together with
the evolution of Asian regionalism research, the power dimension discussed in the
next paragraph provides a basis to map and analyze regionalization of higher educa-
tion research in Asia.
Furthermore, given that education policies including that for regionalization of
higher education travel between nations and/or between regions, its acceptance,
adaption, location, and transformation into a hybrid policy that fits the local or
regional contexts are usually negotiated by nation states through bilateral and mul-
tilateral levels especially using regional and interregional frameworks, networks,
and organizations (Chao 2011 , 2014a; Dale and Robertson 2012 ; Dang 2015 ). This
actually falls in line with DiMaggio and Powell’s ( 1983 ) concept of institutional
isomorphism and collective rationality where regions, and their respective member
nation states and other actors, reshape their respective (regional and national) higher
education systems through coercive isomorphism, mimetic processes, and norma-
tive pressures.
In fact, international organizations along with key East Asian regional organiza-
tions (e.g., ASEAN, SEAMEO-RIHED, and ASEAN University Network) direct
and negotiate higher education discourses and shape the characteristics and evolu-
tion of Asian regionalization of higher education (Chao 2014b; Moutsios 2009 ,
2010 ). The influence of UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau of Education,
and to a lesser extent the Asian Development Bank and the Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation, has also contributed to Asia’s regionalization of higher education
which necessitates inquiry into their contribution to regionalization of higher educa-
tion research in Asia. Lastly, the establishment of the Asia Pacific Quality Assurance
Network (APQN) in 2003, which aims to serve the needs of quality assurance agen-
cies in Asia Pacific higher education, should also be considered in the analysis.
Regionalization of Higher Education Research in Asia
Although a recent study by Jung and Horta ( 2013 ) shows that higher education
research publications in Asia have been increasing, the study also noticed that its
proportion in relation to total world publications in higher education research
5 Regionalism, Regionalization of Higher Education, and Higher Education Research...